Todd Stanford
Description Todd is a 17 year old senior at Rockport High School in the town of Rockport, California. He is smart, yet lazy. He is generally very polite and nice to everyone, a bit of a compensation to how much of a bully he was in his youth. He has light brown hair and hazel eyes, a white-tan complexion, and is 5'9. He is generally very skinny, yet has muscle because of his varsity soccer training. Early Life Todd Stanford was born on 25 April 1998 in the city of San Francisco, California, USA. He was the first of three children born to Aaron and Constance Stanford. Aaron had a tech job at a startup in the late 90s located in Menlo Park, but he relocated his family to Rockport for a more family-oriented atmosphere when twins Charlie and Olivia were born in late 2001. In Kindergarten, he met his still-friends group that consists of his personal best friend Jensen, Camille, Yvette, Tasha, Sam, and Heidi. This group quickly became the "it" crowd, who were characterized as arrogant, conceited, and bullies at such an early age. The majority of it came from Todd himself, Sam, Heidi, and Tasha. They would torment other children for amusement, causing many to resent them and hate them, but still look up to them. One kid they bullied, Ivan, was even thought to have transferred schools due to relentless bullying. Another girl, Samantha, was even suspended in the 4th grade for picking a fight with Heidi in retaliation for her mistreatment. As the group grew older, they matured for the most part. They stopped picking on everyone for no reason, and many made attempts to be extra nice to make up for how horrible they treated everyone in the past. By 8th grade, they were on friendly terms with everyone they had once bullied, yet their mischieviousness became more serious. Many in the group started to get into the partying scene as early as age 13 and 14. Some in the group like Tasha and Heidi even started to have sex with high schoolers. Internal drama led to much friction in the group. Things really started to take shape after 9th grade, when the hierarchy of the social pyramid was established. The friend group was at the top, even while they were freshmen, because they were the stereotypical attractive, athletic, and fashionable crowd who were also good at academics. They would always hang out with the older groups of people. Todd, along with Jensen and Yvette, joined the school's soccer team and quickly excelled, with the two former earning varsity spots by sophomore year. In addition to playing soccer, Todd began working at the school library for two hours each day. Amidst all of this, Todd started to realize he was different from the other guys as early as 7th grade. He didn't think much of it at first, until he hit high school and realized he still didn't like girls. It became the subject of much self-hatred for him, and he didn't tell a soul. His family was accepting enough, but he still didn't have the guts to tell them, nor his friends, not even his best friend Jensen. The secret was tearing him apart, so he turned to partying and drinking and trying to get with girls anyway to change. Many times ended in failure, to the amusement of his group of friends who thought he was a womanizer. The only friend who seemed to know what was really going on was Camille, causing them two to come closer, though he still didn't tell her. Towards the end of his freshman year, he began a relationship with a girl on the swim team, Gabrielle Hutchins. Luke Underwood Incident Becoming desperate and even more internally tormented, Todd turned to Grindr to meet up with guys at the beginning of sophomore year. After soccer practice one day, Todd stayed behind in the park behind the school to meet up with a guy. The guy was in his mid twenties and started to come onto Todd. Todd let the guy kiss him - his first ever gay kiss - and start going further before he became too uncomfortable with doing this in public and left. Unknown to Todd, Luke Underwood - the captain of the lacrosse team and notorious macho man, who already had past issues with Todd's group of friends - witnessed the whole thing, and planned to out Todd. The next day at school, Todd was approaching his locker to change out of his soccer gear when he saw the word "fag" written on it, with a picture of him and the guy. He was mortified, and was trying to take it down when he was cornered by Luke and some of the others. They started to insult and yell at each other, then they started shoving him around - Todd completely defenseless - until Luke took over and started to punch and kick Todd in the ribs and the face, breaking his collarbone and a fracturing a rib. Todd fought back though, and managed to punch Luke in the face and throat, giving him throat trauma and a fractured larynx. Luke then started to menacingly advance towards Todd, who was trying to back away since he was already bruised and bloody. Unfortunately, Todd didn't see the he was backing up directly into the stairs. It was too late, and he fell backwards down the stairs, dislocating his wrist and causing internal bleeding (on top of the fractured rib and broken collarbone). When he hit the floor, he was bleeding profusely from a head wound and was unconscious. At that point, Luke's friends had already ran away fearing being caught, while Luke stood in shock looking at what he had done, not realizing that he took things too far. He ran away before he could be seen. Jensen, Camille, Gabrielle, Yvette, and their other friend Patrick were on the lawn waiting for Todd who usually showed up to hang out after practice. When he didn't show up, they thought it was suspicious but didn't do anything at first. It wasn't until 7 pm when his parents started to get worried and contacted the school and all of Todd's friends. When no one knew where he was, a manhunt ensued consisting of school officials, police force, and Todd's friends. A female officer and a group consisting of Charlie, Jensen, Holly, and a janitor went into the upstairs boys' locker room. When they saw the "fag" graffiti and the picture of Todd kissing his date and a few blood stains, they immediately phoned for back-up and an ambulance. Jensen was the one who found Todd, bloodied and slightly mangled. It appeared as if Todd woke up from his unconsciousness a few times to crawl towards help but kept passing out. Jensen performed CPR when he thought that his best friend might be dead, since he looked like it. Paramedics and Todd's parents arrived minutes later to the scene. The media circus the ensued after the incident gripped the nation. The fact that in 2014 there could be an incident of gay-bashing was ludicrous. When Principal Dagny only handed Luke and his friends a year-long suspension, the public outcry was strong. In addition, Luke was given 100 hours of community service, to be served after his wounds were healed since he also broke his larynx, due to the nature of wounds inflicted on Todd. Todd was unconscious for almost two days. In that time, he was successfully outed due to the media's extensive coverage of it being a gay-bashing. His friends and family were completely shocked, especially his girlfriend Gabrielle. When it was confirmed that he was gay and when the media was displaying pictures of the graffiti'd locker, she cut off all contact with Todd, despite his injuries. When he woke up, his family told him that they still loved him, and will not pressure him to talk about it if he didn't want to. Next, his friends came in and tried to cheer him up and let him know that he didn't have to hide who he really was from them, they would always love him too. After the incident, for which he was hospitalized for two and a half weeks, Jensen was the only friend who showed up every day without fail and even slept over a couple times. He confessed to Todd that he felt guilty that Todd didn't trust him enough to tell him and that they will always be like brothers, no matter what. Jensen's loyalty during Todd's hospitalization only brought the two closer than ever before. Recent Times Ever since the incident, Todd has kept a low profile and developed a more subdued personality, still humiliated and periodically depressed by what had happened almost two years previously. He was dumped by Gabrielle, and the lacrosse team blamed Todd for getting their star player suspended. In addition, the lacrosse team blamed Sam by association, causing a rift to form between Sam and Todd. Some of the administration at school blame him for embarrassing the school in front of the whole nation. It took him about four months to fully recover, and until spring of his sophomore year to start going out to parties again with his friends. The incident is for the most part old-gossip, and no one really sees Todd as the "gay kid who got beat up and became famous" anymore. He is now back to being looked up to as a model student-athlete. In "The Ends" Coming soon